Ohio State has come to terms with its 2012 football season being over.

The next few weeks of bowl games will be tough to stomach for a team that could be playing for the national championship if not for NCAA sanctions for transgressions not committed by any current Buckeyes coach or player.

The only thing that could make it worse would be if the current penalties affect the Buckeyes’ chances for success in 2013.

That is coach Urban Meyer’s concern, because the bowl ban means that Ohio State won’t have the benefit of the 15 practices that the NCAA allows for teams in bowls.

Those practices are used not only as preparation for the bowl game, they are also an opportunity for backups to get much-needed work honing their skills. The lack of December practices has been on Meyer’s mind all season. He cringed whenever the subject was mentioned.

“Terrible,” he said the day after the season-ending victory over Michigan. “That’s a major concern.”

That’s why he had players who didn’t play against the Wolverines up for a 6 a.m. workout two days later with strength coach Mickey Marotti and his staff.

“Of all the concerns we have right now, recruiting is No. 1, and then how we develop this team for the future is No. 2,” Meyer said.

Knowing that the Buckeyes couldn’t practice once the Michigan game was over, Meyer found time during the season for extra work for his backups with Sunday practices.

“We’ll lose all that for the bowl practices,” Meyer said after the Illinois game on Nov. 3. “We’ll lose a minimum of 15 practices. That’s not right. That’s going to be hard for us to recoup that. You can’t just say those are gone. Somehow you’ve got to recoup them. That’s why I’m going so hard on Sunday with the young players.”

The Buckeyes have issues on both sides of the ball that Meyer would love the opportunity to work on, for vastly different reasons.

The only senior starters that Ohio State loses on offense are receiver Jake Stoneburner and right tackle Reid Fragel. The Buckeyes should be able to replace Stoneburner’s production with their returnees and recruits. As well as Fragel played, freshman Taylor Decker pushed him hard for the starting job in preseason camp and will be penciled in as the starter.

But the passing game, though improved, still needs a lot of work. Every practice rep is important, and the Buckeyes won’t have that this month.

On defense, the Buckeyes lose six senior starters, including Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year John Simon. Junior defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins is leaving early for the NFL draft, and third-year sophomore cornerback Bradley Roby might join him.

It’s possible the Buckeyes will have four new starters on the defensive line. For freshmen linemen such as Noah Spence, Adolphus Washington and Tommy Schutt, having those bowl practices could have been invaluable.

“Imagine if you’re a player — it’s kind of cool, I guess, but our guys want to go play,” Meyer said on his call-in radio show in November. “The last time we dealt with that (as a staff) was my first year at Bowling Green where I had to say, ‘OK, I’ll see you guys.’ ‘See us when?’ ‘I’ll see you in a month.’ ”

Marotti and his staff will do their best in conditioning drills to simulate what the players will be missing in full-fledged practices. Players will do drills to increase balance, with emphasis on having proper knee-bend.

“(It’s) one of the most overlooked parts of the fundamentals of football,” Meyer said. “Also tackling — you can do tackling stuff without pads.”

He said two tackling sleds and hand-machine shields will be put in the indoor facility for linemen.

“We can’t coach them, but they can go in there on their own,” Meyer said. “Our players are going to have to do so much on their own because we’re not allowed to be with them.”